food that is real food and that is not

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A TRANSCRIPTION OF A PODCAST AND THERE WILL BE TYPOS :)

Welcome to the, my natural wellness podcast with Dr. Michelle, TRIZ giving you your holistic healthcare perspective. Hey there, this is Charlie, the producer of the show. And once again, we have Dr. Michelle with us, Dr. Michelle, how you doing?

Good. Good. I'm doing great. How are you?

I'm doing great. I'm jazz about this because, and, and I'm not even in your field, but I hear this question and I, you know, walking through the supermarket, God knows, you know, some of this stuff. I, I don't know, it's it just, um, where do they find this stuff that they package for us?

I know

Air quotes, wholesome and nutritious and all that, you know, stop. So anyway, for our listeners, topic is food. That is not food. What the heck is food Michelle?

Yes. I think this topic is so important because we, we think that food is, you know, what's in the grocery store and we think that we have this kind of conception of food. It's like, well, if I'm hungry and then I eat something and then I'm not hungry check that's food. Yeah. But, um, if you look at the definition of food in the dictionary, it says that it has to be, it has to promote life and growth and it has to be nutritious. So two things, it has to promote life and growth and it has to be nutritious. So if it doesn't meet those levels, those standards, then it's really not food fit for the consumption of a human. And so a lot of things in the grocery store meet the first, you know, the one that says is it nutritious? You know, there are a lot of foods that are, that have nutrition in them.

Mm.

But more and more foods do not promote life and growth. They promote cancer and diabetes and high glucose promote inflammation, which causes a whole host of other problems. They deplete serotonin levels in the body, which causes problems with mood. So what is food? What is not food? Food, food must be nutritious and it must promote life and growth. So that's kind of, you know, that's the, there with what food is.

Well, you know, listening to you explain that it brings back memories of when I was a kid. And I, I still remember. Yeah. God knows why, because what, why was I even paying attention? But breakfast, cereal, you know, all about, you know, this fun food and breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Like, you know, yeah. Air quotes, garbage. Um, but there was this uproar, you know, from, from whomever that said, oh my goodness, what are we feeding our children? So the smart serial company said, oh, no worries. We'll just in inject, you know, all these nutrients into the cereal. Right?

Yeah.

So you're still eating the same garbage. It just now has vitamins and minerals.

It has fiber, it has vitamins, it has minerals. And so it's like, you know, that kind of goes into some common food misconceptions. Right. But yeah, I mean food, um, that, you know, and I tell people a lot, like don't shop in the middle shop on the outer edge of the grocery store, because that's where the food is. That's alive. Everything in the middle is dead. So, um, and not gonna produce, give you any life or not gonna promote any life or growth for you.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's great advice. So much easier to shop that way too. I mean, you get in and outta the supermarket like that, you know,

I know it is much easier and it's cheaper, you know, like those, those foods used to be less expensive. And now those, those foods that are packed with preservatives and garbage are, are getting more and more expensive. So yeah, it's, it's a better way to shop is around the, around the edges.

Yeah. So then back to the, what is food just to, just to summarize that and we'll move on. Yeah. The, the two, again, just, do you mind sharing those two,

The two, it has to be nutritious, so it has to have nutrients in it and it has to promote life and growth. So my, my marker here, I'm holding up a marker. You, everybody else can't see, my marker has nutrients in it. Okay. There are, there are different there's, um, different types of iron and there are nutrients in this. I wouldn't eat this right. Because even though it has some nutrients and minerals in it, um, it would hurt me. Right. It would, it would not promote life and growth. Same with, you know, other things I find around here. Like I wouldn't, you know, there's a lot of different things in my stapler that are, that have technically have nutrition in them because there's minerals in them that come from the earth. But there is other stuff in this. And if I ate this marker, it would ha cause a lot of other problems inside.

And then the ink is poisonous to me. And so there are things inside here that do not promote life and growth. And that's the same thing with frozen processed, packaged foods. Is there nutrients in it? Check? Does it promote life and growth? No. It promotes inflammation. It causes other problems. It definitely we'll hinder your digestive process because you are eating foods that are covered in preservatives meant to be preserved. And what your body wants to do is break down foods. So has to be nutritious and it has to promote life and grow. It has to meet those two standards to be considered food. According to the dictionary. I'm not not making this, this, uh, I'm not, this is not according to Dr. Michelle. This is according to the dictionary.

Oh man. So what about common then? Common misconceptions about our food.

Yeah. So I find that there are like three common misconceptions and the first is that that I'm following the food in the food pyramid. Right. And that's, you know, brought to us by the FDA. Um, and so most people don't know that when they first kind of put that food pyramid together, they, uh, that, that a lot of input was brought in by the dairy producers and the wheat farmers. And so they have input into what our food pyramid is. So if you remember the old one, it was like, um, it was a food pyramid and it was leveled at the bottom and you had to have a certain amount of grains and a certain amount of dairy. And, and, and so it's important to know that, like there are organizations and companies who are financially invested in the food pyramid. And so I, I, I am really a proponent of like, don't really follow what's happening on that food pyramid, because you gotta follow where that money is being, and who's being is benefiting the most from, from that.

So that's number one is to really like, kind of like, really think about the food pyramid and what that's, what that's about. And then food is sold in the grocery store. So it must be food. It's gotta be food. Well, you know, rat poison is sold in the grocery store. Cleaning products are sold in the grocery store. There's a lot of things sold in the grocery store that are not food. So number two fallacy that I misconception is is that people think, okay, well, it's in the grocery store, it must be food. And that's just not, um, true because it doesn't meet the definition standard of food. And there are things in the grocery store that obviously you and I would need, right. Going down and getting any products and using that. And really the third one is that food is what our mothers gave us growing up.

And culturally, I find this is the biggest sort of hurdle with my patients and practices. You know, my mom fed this to me and my dad, um, fed this to me and I have like really good memories and cultural memories with my grandma feeding this to me. Um, and sometimes we have to talk about like how maybe 50, 75, a hundred years ago food was different. Wasn't manufactured in this way. So, um, so it's, it's not the same type of food. So it, um, and then we kind of talk about how there are a lot of things culturally, that used to be acceptable that are no, are acceptable for us. Um, and so to kind of create new memories for your family and, and, and bring in new cultures. Um, so I, I, you know, there are a lot of, um, what people think are genetic predispositions, right?

Um, my grandmother had hypothyroid, my mother had hypothyroid and I have the hypoth, right. And I have a little girl now. And so, you know, my conversation is okay, well, you don't want your little child to have this, but if you don't stop this type of culturally, the food that you're eating, that's what your culture has brought you. Then that's exactly what she will end up getting. And it won't be just because it's a genetic trigger, although that's something that you're predisposed to, it'll be the food. And I think we've talked about genetics and a little bit about how, like you can, it's a, it's a light switch that you turn on and off your genetics when it comes to these kinds of things, type two diabetes and, and things like that. It's, it's a light switch. So you have the power to turn it off or, or turn it on. And when I'm

Happy, not a message that, that is really out there much though, you know?

Yeah. It's like, oh, genetic, there's nothing I can do. Right.

Yeah. Hey, you know, take this pill or this inject this insulin or whatever it is, and you'll be fine, which is a slipper for slope. We know, but

It is, it is. And especially not so much with type one diabetes because that's a whole ball of wax there's really like, that is a genetic thing and you can help it. You can help yourself with food of course, but much more. So with type two where it's like something that, and what's, what's crazy to me is that more kids now hour becoming type two diabetics than ever before, ever before. And any time in history that that rate keeps climbing and climbing and climbing. And it just tells us that the process and frozen and fast food, what it's doing to our kids. Yeah.

Um, well, you know, if you don't mind me a couple thoughts, uh, that you, this is awesome. I mean, as you're talking, I'm going, oh my God, that's right. That's right. So, um, you know, back to the food pyramid, you know, I have two sides of that. You know, the business side of me and the marketing size side of me says, that's brilliant. I mean, if you can get the government to say, drink more milk or, and nothing against milk or eat more greens or whatever it is, how, and so, so I, I don't, you know, I, I get that, but, but then we have this entity, the government telling us these certain foods that aren't necessarily maybe in our best interest. Right. Um, so that's, um, that's interesting, but you know, the kids' parts. So I, I, I remember talking to someone and, and they were sharing that, you know, foods today are designed to help us or not to help us to make us eat more. Right. You know, so, so why stop with one bag of chips or one, one bag of cookies, right. Because you, it, it is just, it's just, they're, they're designing a, a, just to continually make you hungry. Um, so that they sell more product. Again, I get that, that makes sense. From a business standpoint yeah. Going to society, right. Yeah.

And the obesity rate in children is, is just climbing and it's climbing and climbing. And it's, it's just, it's like, I it's, you know, when you're looking at it, you you're like, oh my gosh, what do we do in our kids? What is this new generation gonna have? Just a series of, you know, we've come to this place technologically, where we've been able to extend our lifespan. Right. We are living longer than ever. We have all of these things that we've created to help us to live longer, but we're also at the same time, at the very, very same time. We're cutting down our quality of life. So yeah, you may live to be 85, 95, but you'll be on prescription medication starting at 55. So for most of your life, you will be on these medications that are gonna cause you pain and suffering. So what is the point of living longer if you're gonna suffer for most of that time?

Um, and the food is really, what is it is the linchpin. It is the key. It is like, you know, when people come into the practice, I'm like, if you cannot commit to eliminating foods that are gonna cause inflammation, then we really, I, I'm not the right person for you. I'm not the one, I won't be the one I'm not gonna sugarcoat it and say, oh no, it's okay. You know, cheat a little bit. You know, I'm like, no, let's stick to it. Let's stay on, on point with how you're supposed to be eating so that you can live along and healthy life and not have to be too taking medications.

Um, you know, you, you nailed it with the quality of life. Uh, just, just a, again, this is just amazing. Um, you know, a disease like diabetes type two diabetes. So the impact financially or any other condition, you know, just a, as, you know, our daughters type one completely different, as you mentioned, disease shouldn't even they call diabetes. Um, because it always gets confused, the financial impact on her because of the need to buy insulin on a regular basis and all the other components and, and, and her appointments twice a year or every quarter with, with her doc that you and I are, or, or, you know, those who don't have type one, you know, all of that adds up. So, so you have that financial burden, no different for type two, you need all those checkups. Um, and you know, it, it, it brings back a, a memory.

So, so Barbara and I, we were in the health club business, as you know, and, and one day Barbara was teaching her class. She, she taught a class Saturday mornings, and one of her members, we, we knew everyone in the community and, and, you know, you get to know their kids and their parents and all that. And Barb says, oh, you know, Mary, how's your, how's your father doing? And she says, oh yeah, you know, he's been struggling with type two, but he, but he's doing great. He just had his lower leg amputated and, and he's fine now. Mm.

Yeah.

It's just, wow. I, so, so back to the, the quality of life, I mean, uh, yeah, all that impacts us and you beginning, you opened up with mood and the impact food has on mood. Yeah. I mean, you know, we don't need to have, you know, an appendage, an appendage amputate it to ruin our day. I mean, our day can be ruined from moment. We wake up because of how we feel. Right.

Exactly. I mean, and you, most people don't realize, you think neurotransmitter, you think neuron, you think brain, but you have all these neurotransmitters that are made in your gut. And we can only make them when we eat really good, uh, food that is food that is food and food that is alive. And we won't make them. Um, if we don't and all of these, um, SSRIs, you know, those, um, depression medication, what it does is it's trying to just extend the life of the serotonin that you already make. Um, but to not help you make anymore. And so there's so many amino acids in, in the food that we eat, that it helps us make serotonin. It helps us make GABA. It helps us make calomine. All of these neuron minerals are responsible for us feeling this overwhelming sense of like wellbeing. Like, I may not be super high.

I may not be super low, but everything is okay. Yeah. When you don't feel that way, um, it, it really, it it's really hard to go through life. I see so many people with digestive dysfunction and, um, depression, IBS, I mean, and you can look this up, there's study after study people with IBS also have depression. Why, why is it overwhelmingly that people who have digested dysfunction also have depression? It's because of the food that we're eating, um, and IBS is another one that it's just like, we've given this to ourselves. This is not something that people had 50 years ago. And there's a lot of different ones, too. You know, people, the rate of it, it's, it's shocking to me the rate of, um, people that I've seen now and the statistics on how many people have hypothyroidism or Hashimotos thyroiditis, or, uh, so it's keeps going up.

And then what they do is they remove your thyroid instead of fixing the root problem. Yeah. Like, OK, let's change the food up. Let's eliminate dairy. Let's eliminate gluten, cuz these are causing inflammation in your body. Nope. Let's just remove the thyroid, which causes a long term. Now talk about like they're removing thyroids from women in their twenties. Wow. You, you cannot, you, your, your thyroid is responsible for your metabolism. So you in, it really affects the quality of your life, how much weight you gain, how good you feel, your, your mood, you know, whether you're not, you have like intermittent diarrhea and constipation for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life, because you don't have your thyroid. So when, so it's, it's, that's it let's just chop off. Let's take the limb out. Just like you said, with the person with type two diabetes. Well, we Chuck up the foot off and it's fine now everything's gonna be good. Well, really? Is it fine? Was that okay? I don't think it's okay. Yeah. To remove organs when it's an emergency situation. Yes. But moving our gallbladder, we're moving it all the time because it's of the food that we eat and we're removing our appends all the time and our limbs, our thyroid it's like constantly, we're just like, well, let's just surgically take it off. And that's just the medical model, you know, that's the

Current

Critical model.

It's just become accepted that that's the path, whether it's medication and, or, you know, surgery, surgery, and, and uh, like you said, Hey, an emergency situation and all that, my goodness, you know, what will we do without hospitals for accidents and things like, And medicine and so forth. But you know, it's like the pendulum has swung too far. And, and why don't we at least attempt some of these other more natural, less, uh, intrusive, uh, uh, ways of healing the body. Right, right,

Right. It's kinda like we are using a, a acute care model for chronic illness. Yeah. So acute is, I've gotten in a car accident, I've broken my arm and I need, I need medication. I need to help stabilize myself. I may need blood. I may need all of these things. And, um, and that's an acute, that's something that acutely happened, but we have not, we've taken that model and used it for chronic illness and said, okay, well, we're just gonna use the same exact model that we would use to treat you when you were having a crisis is that we were having it in this long term chronic illness. And that is really like the problem that I feel like is like, what is the main problem with the, with the way that we're treating people now is, is at that we treat them with it as with an acute solution for chronic illness.

And that should be, they they're very different. Um, don't come to me for a broken, a broken arm and stitch, I mean, I could stitch you up, but it would be pretty ugly. But, um, but then what, what I'm, what I wanna help is with people who have chronic, they have chronic illnesses and they've kind of come to the end of the rope with their primary care. And they like they're, they don't know what to do. And it's true because they've been trained on an acute model. So you can only go with just like, I can't, I don't know what to do for an acute problem. It, it it's, it's there's times when, when that model, that particular medical model just doesn't work for chronic illness.

Yeah. You know, you mentioned they come to you and, and because they don't know where else to turn or what else to do, but, you know, I'm, I'm sure you hear this a lot instinctually. They just know there's a better way. There's a solution out there. Yeah. Unfortunately they keep looking and they find you, uh, that's really the way it was with our daughter. We just knew there was a better way based on instinct really. And when we were able to figure out, uh, because listening to the medical advice, uh, was not, you know, it's keeping her alive, but quality of life, boy, forget it.

Exactly. Exactly. I mean, yeah, of course that it can keep you alive, but is that really like, is that enough in this day and age, you can't can't we do better than that. Can we have a great quality of life or we're happy and we're healthy and we have all our limbs and all our organs. It's like, let's keep our organs, all of them. We're

Good. Yep. So then that brings us to, where can we find real food?

Yeah. Food that is food. Um, so you can find real food at like farmer's markets. Um, you can be part of a co-op, which is a great way to introduce yourself to new and interesting fruits and vegetables that you probably never had before. I think that it it's like I'd never had like Parnas before I'd never been exposed to like Kawas before, like these like very types of fruits. And what I love about doing like a kind of a co-op, um, being part of a co-op produce is that you are getting fruit. That is, um, in season people talk about that all the time. And I wanna mention here, what is the reason why we need to eat fruit in season? The, the, like a strawberry we can get 'em all the time. Right? You can get a strawberry in December, you can get a strawberry in may, right?

But you, you can taste that is not there in the summer. Like it is in the winter. And that's because we are not meant to be eating that at that time of the year, we're meant to rotate our foods. So some people come in with a lot of, to my practice with a lot of food sensitivities. And I look at like what they eat. They eat the same thing every single day, over and over and over and over. And then they have, they get this food sensitivity to something innocuous like strawberries or, or chicken or garlic or something like that. And it's because we're men meant to be, we're not meant to be eating this, that food every single day for an entire year. So that sensitivity or that sort of, that's the body's way of saying stop eating this food so much. It's your body communicating to you?

So some people get like hives or they get, they break out a little bit. And, and some of them are like, like long term food sensitivities, like some, you know, like dairy and, and gluten things are just like, but when you find things are like fruit and vegetables that you have food sensitivities to, I'm always like, okay, let's food journal. Let's figure out what you're eating. Okay. I see that you're eating too much of that. So it's important to eat fruit and season, and then those co-ops get, they will really be, um, good about giving you fruits in, uh, in season. And then there's a lot of like different farms, local farms here that, um, locally in this area. But if you're not in this area, there are a lot of farms that will be able to, you'll be able to sign up and get and food that is really food.

And you want food that hasn't been sprayed with. Pesticides. People ask me all the time, how important is it that I really spend the extra money on our organic? And I say, you are what you eat eats. So if your, whatever you're eating is eating garbage, you're eating garbage too. So if you are, and your, what does a plant eat? A plant eats what's in the soil. It, it thrives from sun and water, but it is gaining nutrients from the soil. So if the soil is sprayed with glyphosates, then you're getting, uh, you're getting Roundup, you're getting it in your body and it's damaging your liver long term. Um, so which causes all hosts of other problems that are down the road. So it's important as much as you can, as much as you're financially able to, um, to buy produce that is organic, that hasn't been sprayed.

There's some people know about it, dirty dozen, clean 15. There's a website on there about foods that are common or best to buy organic. If you, if wanna have that list. But I say, you know, I'm I'm of the proponent that even though the exterior shell may not have been sprayed inside the plant is, is, is eating all of that. That's in the soil. So it's better. It's best to eat organic as much as you possibly can. Same with chicken and beef. Um, it, if your chicken is eating, you know, antibiotics and corn, corn is like nutritionally devoid of any. So, so, so you are, or if you're getting, um, you know, uh, farm raised fish, which is sick, farm raised fish is sick fish. It's not, I mean, there's lots of studies done on this too. And there's documentary out there. It shows that the, the fishermen will say, okay, or that the, in the farms, what color do you want your salmon? Because it's gray right now. And then they'll give the supermarket a wheel and say, which pink, what kind of, what level of pink would

You

Really salmon to be? So you are eating sick salmon. If you're not eating it wild. And when you get it wild, what does it eat it when you get it farm raised, it eats these little pellets. When you get it wild, it's eating all of the little kelp and at the bottom of the sea, and then you are getting that, and then that's helping your brain, your thyroid, your heart, it's doing a lot of good things. So fish is such a good food for you if you're eating wild cup fish. So those things are important. Getting food that is, is not just, you know, even food that is technically considered food like fish, right? Like salmon really good for you. I would say that it does not promote life and growth. If it's not wild caught, I would say that it does not promote life and growth. If it's not grass fed and organic, or with the chicken, if it's not organic and free range, that's the best kind of that you can get. Um, so you want, so even food that can seem like, oh, chicken that's food, right? Technically it's nutritious, but if it's not organic, it is not gonna promote life and growth. It's gonna promote inflammation in another make problems. So getting your food from good sources and getting good sources of those foods is really important too.

Well, Dr. Michelle, this is, this has been just amazing.

Another good conversation, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Boy. So helpful. So helpful me personally. And, and I know our listeners, they've probably taken pages of notes at this point. So this is definitely an episode that you're gonna wanna listen to again and again, cause you, you touched on so many different things, uh, that to help. Uh, it's amazing. So wow. Onto our next episode, we have another one in the can. Congratulations. Yeah.

I think in the next one, we're gonna talk more about food. I think in the next one we're gonna get to diving deep into what is the problem with gluten and what is the problem with theory? Like let's just dig it so that we can answer some common misconceptions and really kind of like what, what is, what is the problem with these things? Yeah. And let's dive into the science of it and, and we'll talk about studies and things that have been done so that people really understand why I'm, why am I, why am I making this choice? Not to have to put these foods in my body? And then we'll, we'll have to talk about sugar too. Cause that's another big one.

I can't wait. We, uh, and this is because of our daughter. Um, we removed gluten about probably going on about 10 years now. It was game changer. We did support her daughter and uh, my goodness, best move, ever, mood energy on and on. So I can't wait till that episode.

Yeah, that'll be the next one. We'll be talking about that more in detail.

All right, well, we'll see you then

See you then.

Thank you for listening to the, my natural wellness podcast with Dr. Michelle